Once United, Toyota Dealerships Now Divided Over Plug-in Kits for Priuses

Once United, Toyota Dealerships Now Divided Over Plug-in Kits for Priuses

By Scott Doggett, Contributor

There's been lots of buzz recently about Toyota dealerships turning up their noses at the Japanese automaker and jumping onto the plug-in hybrid bandwagon by agreeing to offer private conversions of the ubiquitous Prius.

But such options now seem likely to be few and far between.

Of the four Toyota dealerships that initially agreed to install the Hymotion-brand conversion kits from lithium-ion battery supplier A123Systems, one says it won't go forward until "lots of issues" are resolved and another decided to back out of the deal altogether, fearing repercussions from the automaker.

Toyota spokesman John Hanson, in an interview with Green Car Advisor, was emphatic that dealerships have nothing to fear from the automaker. The carmaker is "neutral" on conversion kits, he insisted.

"All we have said to them so far is that they're free to do the conversions, and here are the implications if you choose to do them," he said. By implications, Hanson means Toyota's warranty won't cover claims arising from conversions.

And as for the conversion companies themselves? Toyota doesn't "have anything bad to say" about them, Hanson said. "What they are doing is logical. Hopefully, the conversions are done properly."

Prius Power

The Prius blends power from an electric motor and a gasoline engine, both of which are computer-controlled. A nifty gearbox Toyota calls a power split device allows the electric motor and the gas engine to supply thrust to the wheels simultaneously or separately.

When the power demand is small -- traveling downhill or at low speed, for instance -- the four-door sedan can operate entirely electrically, with a nickel-metal hydride battery pack supplying electricity to the motor.

When more power is needed for higher speeds, hills, heavy loads or towing, the gas engine starts up and supplies thrust to the wheels via the gearbox. The electric motor assists as needed, improving mileage by curbing the vehicle's thirst for gasoline.

But a stock Prius isn't equipped with a power cord. All of the electricity its battery pack and motor gets comes from regenerative braking and other clever systems on the vehicle itself. Click here if you want to know more about how the Prius' drivetrain works.

Kit Assist

The Hymotion L5 Plug-in Conversion Module -- or kit -- increases the electric capability of the Prius hybrid platform by supplementing the vehicle's factory battery with a lithium-ion battery pack (pictured).

It may look large, but it's actually small enough to fit in the spare tire well, preserving trunk space. It is charged by plugging it in to the commercial power grid via a regular residential outlet.

The add-on battery pack's large energy capacity enables the plug-in Prius to use electric drive more often and for longer distances than the factory battery pack, so the gas engine is engaged less frequently.

The result: substantial savings at the gas pump, reduced dependence on oil, up to 50 percent fewer global-warming gas emissions, cleaner air for our lungs and a gleeful smugness that comes from knowing that you're so much better than most everyone else on the road because your ride's so green.

It's because the kit comes with a cord that makes the stock Prius a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. That's a big deal, because it means you don't have to depend on the Prius' onboard equipment to charge the kit. Hymotion claims the kit can be fully charged in as little as 4.5 hours using a 120-volt outlet like the one the toaster's plugged in to.

Drawbacks

There are limits, though.

For starters, the kit can only be used in model-year 2004-'08 Priuses. (Hymotion has yet to add the 2009 model to the list of kit-eligible Priuses.) Because the Prius has been available since 1997, there are an awful lot of Prius owners who won't be able to take advantage of the kit -- even if they are willing to attempt a bank heist to pay for one.

Which brings us to the kit's No. 1 drawback, from a buyer's perspective. That would be its $9,995 price tag, which includes a three-year warranty and installation but not a $400 destination fee or applicable taxes.

A potentially big drawback has to do with who assumes liability for the kit. Green Car Advisor left many messages for Sanjeev Choudhary, Hymotion's general manager, to ask about his product's insurance liability and other issues, including when the kits will be available for purchase -- the dealers say have yet to receive any to sell. Sadly, we never heard from Choudhary.

Hymotion's Website says its battery pack has passed all necessary National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration tests -- click here to watch a kit-packed Prius get munched in slo-mo -- and there are some clever safety features designed to keep the kit out of trouble. But what if those safety features failed or weren't sufficient and a kit set the car on fire or otherwise damaged something besides itself? Who'd be liable?

Lots of Issues

"Who'd be liable" is exactly what Kenny Burns would like to know. The general sales manager for Toyota of Hollywood (California, not Florida) says he's "excited" about the battery pack and thinks it'll be "very popular."

But, he said, "we want to make sure that liability-wise, we're dealing with a company that has the assets needed to take care of problems that might arise, because we don't really know who we're dealing with."

Besides that, Burns said he still hasn't received any crash-test approval documents from Hymotion or parent company A123Systems, and "the price that they want us to retail the kit for is not acceptable to us."

All four of the dealers said that Hymotion set the kit's $9,995 price and that the price contains only a couple hundred dollars' profit for the dealerships that install them. When you take into account the time a mechanic spends installing a kit that he would otherwise spend servicing another vehicle, there's absolutely no profit for the dealerships, they say.

Liability questions. Undelivered crash test results. Negligible or nonexistent profit margin. "There's a lot of issues," Burns said.

Risky Business?

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a sales manager at Denny Hecker Toyota of Minneapolis, Minnesota, said, "we were really excited and happy" to offer and install the kits, "but our manufacturer and us are friends -- and want it to remain that way."

In case that sentence wasn't clear enough, the sales manager added: "We're going to do what Toyota wants us to do, and so really we're taking ourselves out of the equation at this point."

Nevermind what Hanson, the Toyota spokesman, said. This dealer feels the automaker isn't at all neutral on the subject of private conversions. And that makes sense when you consider that Toyota is producing its own plug-in prototypes (pictured) of the already preposterously popular Prius conventional hybrid. The one shown here, like the rest, is for test purposes only.

No date has been announced on when -- or rather if -- Toyota-built Prius PHEVs will appear in showrooms.

True Believer

Of the two dealerships that say they are still committed to installing the kits, one has developed a close relationship with A123Systems due to its proximity to the battery supplier. Both companies are located in Massachusetts. Only 27 miles separate Westboro Toyota, which serves Westboro and Boston, from A123Systems of Watertown.

A number of years ago, when Westboro Toyota was the No. 1 Prius dealer New England, it sponsored high-mileage competitions and allowed A123Systems to demonstrate its conversion kits at the dealership at no charge -- and it still does, according to Charlie Tonelli. He views the dealership he owns with his brother, Peter, as environmentally progressive.

"It's not money-oriented for us," said Tonelli. "We're doing it because they need someone to do it in this region. A lot of people are skeptical about this, but we've been involved in it a long time."

The dealership has been receiving four to six calls a week about the kit from prospective customers, he said. The calls started about a month ago, when a press release distributed by Hymotion triggered a spate of articles about the battery pack that included the names of the four dealerships that had initially agreed to install them.

As for the kit's liability issues -- what if the kit causes a catastrophic event, such as starting a fire that totals the vehicle? -- Tonelli chose to brush off the question.

"I don't have any of that information," he said. "My thing is that it (promoting alternative energy) is like the best thing that we can be doing, not just for the fuel price -- that's just an expense -- but where are we going to be in years to come? Something has to happen."

Greater Good
Jack Fitzgerald, president of Fitzgerald Auto Malls, home to dozens of auto franchises, including Toyota, in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Florida, couldn't agree more.

Fitzgerald said he's "just as concerned about global warming as anybody. I want to breathe clean air just as you do." But there's also the issue of competition. Our capitalist system is supposed to be a free-market operation, he said, "and yet all of us go like little lambs to our gas station and kneel at the foot of the oil producers and take whatever they'll take from us.

"It's not just the price of oil. It's also the availability of it. People know that it's possible that we can have gas lines again. Availability is worse than price. When you can't get it at all, what do you do then? You pay whatever you have to pay because you have to have a car. And that's really awful. We should not subject ourselves to that."

As far as liability goes, Fitzgerald said he told Hymotion that he wants them to indemnify him of any claims arising from the kit, just like Toyota indemnifies him from claims arising from a manufacturing defect. He said that far as he knows, Hymotion is satisfied with his terms.

Different Perspective

Felix Kramer, founder of calcars.org, a Web site devoted to promoting plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, said he was impressed when Hymotion reported that four Toyota dealerships had agreed to install the third-party kit.

"I thought it was pretty important that any Toyota dealers would even consider selling plug-in conversions and maybe jeopardize their primary relationship" with Toyota, he said. That they agreed to sell them conveys the demand that exists for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, he said.

"Dealers are listening. They are closer to the customers" than are the automakers, Kramer said. "They know people want plug-ins."

In his opinion, Hymotion has spent the most time of any of the conversion companies in making a supplemental battery pack that is crash-proven, safe and viable.

While Hymotion's chief wasn't willing to discuss the kit with us, Kramer said he'd heard that the company has received more than a thousand deposits for the kit.

Hymotion "won't say so," Kramer said, "but that's what I've heard from people who've placed orders with them."

As with so many other startups trying to capture market share in the burgeoning electric-vehicle industry, only time will tell if Hymotion is mostly hype or one of the next big things.

Scott Doggett:  is an AutoObserver.com Associate Editor.